Civ/Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri/Understanding the Governor

The Governor
The Governor is a means by which players can automate or partially automate the operation of their cities. The alternative is to manually control every aspect of it.

Default Setting
By default all the options are enabled but the governor is not active. Clicking on any of the Build, Conquer, Discover or Explore options in the city control screen will activate the Governor. When the governor is activated in this manner the game engine is in complete control of the city and it will follow the priorities set by the Build, Conquer, Discover or Explore options.

Running with Minimal Options
More advanced players may wish to run with a more minimal set of options. For example, running with just the "Governor is active" and "Governor manages citizens and specialists (including Drone Riots)" will leave the governor managing the citizens - including assigning workers to tiles and dealing with drone riots - while leaving the human player in control of the build queue. Running with these settings also exerts some control over which tiles are assigned to; for example selecting Explore or Discover will result in workers primarily being assigned to tiles producing food; selecting Build will result in more forest squares (with their additional minerals) being included.

Running without the Governor
At higher levels the game engine has a big advantage over human players. To some extent this can be partially negated by micro-managing cities in their early stages. For example, by manually assigning workers it is possible to ensure that the city builds a Recreation commons just as it increases from size 2 to size 3. The Recreation Commons are neither built early (which wastes energy) not late (which can result in drone riots). However, micro-managing the first cities is labour intensive and may detract from enjoyment of the game.